Google Art Project: A Museum of Museums

For anyone familiar with Google Maps street view, the Google Art Project takes the same navigational approach to select art museums.  Yes, you can cruise  through the Museum of Modern Art just as you can cruise a street in Google Maps using just your web browser.  Even better, you can zoom in on art works, too.  In some cases, you can zoom in so far that you’ll see cracks, brush strokes, and places where the canvas is showing through from damage.

The Google Art Project is completely online, completely free, and extremely simple to navigate.  Viewers can enjoy over 1,000 art works from over a dozen art galleries from around the world.  Viewers can even create their own collection of favorite works to share with others.  Google has included an informational panel for each work of art, making the virtual museum tour great for students.

The Google Art Project creator, Amit Sood, recently spoke about his project at TED. Watch the video to learn a bit about this cool project.

Google Breadcrumb

image of girl courtesy of apdk on Flickr

Google Breadcrumb is an interesting Google Labs application designed specifically for mobile devices.  The best things about Google Breadcrumb is that it is free, easy, and a powerful tool for kids.  Check out our article on GeekMom to get the inside scoop on Google Breadcrumb.

Global Learning Ideas

Houghton-Mifflin loves out-of-the-box ideas on how to create global-scalable initiatives that can improve student outcomes across the globe.  To encourage truly unique ideas, Houghton-Mifflin has created a challenge to the world.  Who can come up with unique and globally-scalable ideas for improving learning?  To encourage serious participation, Houghton-Mifflin has recruited an all-star judge line-up and offering significant prizes to the best ideas.

Mobile Device-Centered Curriculum

As a child-led, project-based learning advocate, I’ve submitted a few ideas to the challenge on transforming student learning.  Because my extensive research shows that mobile devices are strategically one of the most important learning tools available (and cheaper than traditional computers), I’ve suggested a mobile device-centric curriculum.  I already have a significant body of curriculum content developed. With enough support, I’m willing to formalize the content and adapt it for public, private, and home schoolers.

Global Collaborative Network

Another idea I’ve contributed outlines a collaboration space where global students can work together to compose music, write poetry, short stories, solve math problems, share research data, and anything else they wish to crowd source. This space isn’t designed to improve skills, learn facts, or write Wikipedia-like articles. This is a creative space where students from around the world create or join creative projects where they flex skills they’ve already gained.  The resulting products are Creative Commons licensed to encourage participation.

Vote

If you’d like to see either of these projects become a reality, please  create an account at GEC and “Thumbs-up” these ideas.

Thanks!

Make an International Friend Through ePals

Photo courtesy of The Italian Voice

We love online learning tools, especially free resources that provide real value.  Kids love online learning tools, too, and summer is a great time to explore new resources.  ePals is a free online learning portal through which teachers, parents, and learners can connect with each other for group collaborations, interactions, and communications.  ePals also has some quality group learning projects focused around culture, natural disasters, and natural science.  It is a safe way for children to connect with each other, regardless of where they live.  What a great way to practice your second language skills or learn about another culture from a kid’s perspective.

Set up a free a ePals account and start connecting whether you’re a teacher, parent, homeschooler, or school student.

Summer Citizen Science Ideas

Just because school’s out doesn’t mean kids should sit around watching TV or playing video games all day!  There are some really fun citizen science participation opportunities that are not only fun for the participant, but useful for real scientists who analyze the data to further their research.  How cool is that?

Here are a few of the citizen science programs we like.  If you have one you like, please share through our comments section!

Sci.spy

The Science Channel is empowering citizen scientists with camera phone devices to snap pictures of plants, animals, insects, etc. A free Sci.spy app makes it easy to register the location of the photo, and users are encouraged to add descriptive tags to help categorize the photos. So, get off the couch and start contributing to research initiatives that rely on citizen data.

SpaceHack

SpaceHack is a collection of physics, astronomy, and space-related citizen science projects aimed at teens.  SpaceHack has some very interesting projects that help participants learn about data, data access, data formats, and data analysis.

Firefly Watch

The Museum of Science, Boston, is coordinating citizen scientists from around the U.S. to submit firefly counts at a chosen location during the summer. Additionally, they’ve made observation data available for everyone to download and analyze.

Project BudBurst

Help researchers investigate the effects of climate change by documenting changes in plants as seasons change.  Using a standardized data format, scientists gather citizen data from around the U.S. Also, data is available for download so citizen scientists can track changes, too!

Scientific American Citizen Science

Scientific American has dedicated a section of its website to citizen science.  There are some really cool projects and games highlighted on this site.

Make a Difference with KooDooz

KooDooz.com is a creative, interactive service learning website where kids can contribute to social service challenges. Kid-friendly challenges have easily attainable milestones.  KooDooz provides a fun interface with clear step-by-step instructions on how to complete the challenges, and contributors earn community service hours that are tracked on the website.

Challenges range from making and selling bookmarks to raising awareness and money for literacy to roadside entrepreneurship.  If you’ve got a great idea for a challenge, there’s a way for you to recommend it, too.

Why is KooDooz important?

Consider the following points made on the KooDooz site:

• Relevancy in the classroom is extraordinarily low. Though Digital Natives respond best in peer-to-peer environments, schools continue to teach one-to-many. Additionally, too few schools are leveraging a resource kids care about most: social technology.
• Frustratingly, when technology is implemented in the classroom, the ever-increasing progress of available tools makes any one investment quickly outdated. Kids who are spending recreational time at the keyboard are better versed with technology advances than the teachers themselves.
• The passion points of kids in the context of learning through real-world engagement have not been widely available. 83% of all students (90% African Americans, 83% Hispanics, and 81% of whites) said they would definitely or probably enroll in service-learning classes if they were offered in their school.
• Kids who want to make a difference are quick to discover that there are unequal opportunities for civic engagement before age twenty.
• Though on average, kids have to fulfill 25 to 50 hours of community service in middle school and 40 to 100+ hours in high school before graduation, only a small number of program choices are typically offered.

Fun Sustainability Games, Videos and Learning Resources

Kids love learning online.  There are numerous online resources available for learning about sustainability, but we’ve selected a few that are extra cool.  After all, our philosophy is that learning is fun!

PBSKids

Great  short videos designed for kids, PBSKids Loop Scoops tackles topics like manufacturing of “stuff”, recycling, and the environment.

Rustle the Leaf

Rustle the Leaf is a fun comic strip site geared toward kids.  We like the coloring pages, videos, and lesson plans on the site.

Catchment Detox

Catchment Detox is an online entrepreneurial-style sustainability game where the player makes choices to build a sustainable and prosperous water drainage basin (catchment).

Water Footprint Calculator

National Geographic has a fun interactive water footprint calculator that helps kids learn about how their lifestyle impacts the environment.

Eco Innovator’s sustainability Quiz iPod/iPhone/iPad app

This free app quizzes the user about sustainability principles allowing winners to unlock mini games.

Five TEDTalks Around Innovative Sustainability

Celebrate Earth Day by sharing some inspiring TED videos with children.  There are numerous amazing TED Talks on sustainability and the environment.  Here are a few of our favorites.  Enjoy!

Mitchell Joachim: Don’t build your home, grow it!

Janine Benyus shares nature’s designs

Mushrooms are the new plastic

Natalie Jerejimenko: The art of the eco mindshift

How I built a toaster from scratch

How to Calculate Your Carbon Footprint

Your carbon footprint is simply an estimate of how much carbon dioxide you produce as a result of your daily lifestyle.  Besides the obvious CO2 you produce through breathing, chances are that the products you consume, the energy you use to drive, heat your home, or power your electronic devices all add to your carbon footprint.  When we process fossil fuels to make things (like fertilizer and plastics), CO2 is released into our environment.  Burning gasoline in our cars also produces CO2.  Enormous increases in CO2 in our environment lead to changes in our climate and are disastrous to our health.  The good news is that once we’re aware of our carbon footprint, there are steps we can take to reduce it.  Here are three of our favorite Carbon Footprint calculators:

Yahoo! Green. Our favorite carbon footprint calculator is Yahoo! Green’s tool.  The Yahoo! tool helps families determine their carbon footprint and plan for ways to reduce it.

The Nature Conservancy.  The Nature Conservancy has an easy to use Carbon Footprint calculator that takes a more proactive approach to calculating your carbon footprint.  The Nature Conservancy tool asks for things you are already doing to offset your carbon footprint, and then provides a comparison of your footprint with that of the average in the U.S. and the world.

Ecological Footprint. Ecological Footprint is a more in-depth quiz that provides your footprint information in terms of the number of earths we’d need if everyone had the same carbon footprint as ours.  This is a startling but effective result.  Try it yourself

Twenty Common Sense Ways to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

According to the Yahoo! Green website, the average American emits 9.44 tons of CO2 per year.  In fact, the U.S. ranks second among all countries for carbon emissions.  Let’s look at twenty common sense changes we can all make to help reduce our family’s Carbon footprint.

1. Eat a meatless meal once per week. If you’re really serious about reducing your meat consumption, watch Graham Hill’s TEDTalk on being a weekday vegetarian.
2. Eat a meatless meal once per day.
3. Buy locally grown food.
4. Buy organic foods (a large percentage of  fossil fuels used on farms goes toward making fertilizers).
5. Use 100% recycled computer printer paper.
6. Recycle all aluminum cans in your garbage.
7. Use a washable mug instead of a styrofoam cup for your coffee or hot cocoa.
8. Bring your own canvas bags to the store instead of using plastic or paper.
9. Use washable plates and utensils instead of disposables whenever possible.
10. Get a reusable water bottle instead of disposables.
11. Buy products with minimal packaging.
12. Run the clothes washer only with full loads.
13. Air dry your clothes in spring and summer instead of using the dryer.
14. Buy vintage clothes instead of new stuff at the mall.
15. Wash your clothes in cold water.
16. Unplug electronics when not using them.
17. Replace your lawn with native plants.
18. Turn your thermostat down two degrees in the winter and up two degrees in the summer.
19. Drive the speed limit.
20. Drive less aggressively, don’t accelerate and brake rapidly.

If you modify your lifestyle to include all of these simple changes, you’ll offset your carbon footprint by 1.23 tons CO2/year.  If you’re really committed to offsetting your carbon footprint even further, check out Yahoo! Green’s nifty CO2 calculator and Green Planner.